Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (7 page)

They looked like they were starving. They looked like photos Sarah remembered seeing of concentration camp victims before the Allies rescued them.

The noise of the place was unholy, matched only by the relentless stench. A roar of machinery laced the people's pleas like an undercurrent of percussion. Behind the line of begging wretches, Sarah could see bodies lying in various stages of decomposition. Beyond that were the long snaking lines of the factory workers standing at their stations, their backs to the door.

Up ahead, Jeff was talking with a stooped over, one-armed elderly man. The old man nodded continually as Jeff talked, never once looking him in the eye. Finally, Jeff thrust the end of the rope into the man's hand and walked back out the way he had come. As Sarah watched him, she found herself memorizing his walk, his eyes above the scarf.

If hope of seeing John again was what kept her alive, imagining this man's eventual just deserts was what kept her sane.

He passed her without a glance in his hurry to exit the reeking bedlam.

Sarah turned to look at the people who still stood in the aisle, entreating her with muted cries of anguish. A young man, totally nude, screamed in frustration and Sarah thought she saw that his tongue had been cut out. She looked away in horror and gripped the rope in front of her as if it were a lifeline and not the very thing pulling her deeper and deeper into the furor and chaos. She forced herself not to look at the tragic souls with their arms outstretched to her.
How can they possibly think I am in any position to help them?

But she knew. They were once like her. Strong, well fed. Clothed. Alert. They had once walked through those double doors.

A sharp jerk on her hands jolted her attention to what was happening in front of her. The old man who had been given their rope was in the process of untying them. Up close, Sarah could see he wasn't really that old at all. But he was stooped and one-armed, and she bet he didn't come into this place that way.

When he roughly disengaged her bonds, Sarah cried out in pain. Her wrists were badly abraded. She felt she had left a thin layer of skin on the ropes he whipped from her hands. He dropped the rope on the ground and motioned for her and the other three to follow him. Sarah noticed the young girl had her arms wrapped around the waist of the woman who was probably her mother. Sarah didn't know whether to be glad or sorry for that.

The other woman, whose large nose had saved her from whatever had been behind Door Number Two, rubbed her wrists and kept her eyes on the back of their new jailor. She had been one of the new ones, Sarah thought. Her nightmare was only two days old.

They followed the man through the corridor of naked, weeping humanity into the very heart of the noise and confusion of the factory, for that was clearly what it was. The closer they came to the backs of the standing workers, Sarah could see bits of feathers floating in the air. As they came up to the workers, the feathers formed a virtual explosion of fleece and eiderdown that hung in the air like mushroom clouds of fluff.

As they hurried past the workers, Sarah could see that the women—there were very few men, and they all old—were killing, plucking and gutting chickens. The noise was at such a tumultuous peak that it was obvious the cacophony came from the terrified birds—most of them shitting themselves in their violent panic—and the sounds of the hand cranked machinery that smashed the carcasses to dust.

If ever there was a hell on earth
…Sarah thought as she watched the glazed, robotic looks on the chicken workers.

The man stopped at one spot on the factory line and grabbed the girl from her mother. He shoved her into line and held up a finger to make her look at him. She tore her eyes from her mother and watched him as if hypnotized. He grabbed a live chicken from the crate to the left of the girl, wrung its neck and placed its still flopping body in her hands. He pointed to the basket of chicken feathers. In the clangor of the factory, it was impossible to hear conversation of any kind.

And then the girl, who up until a year ago probably had only used her hands to text her BFF or get a fill-in on her gel nail set, grabbed the spasmodic chicken and began frenetically yanking its feathers out. Sarah saw the man nod with satisfaction and then turn to look at the girl's mother. He indicated with a jerk of his head that she was to stay with the girl. Sarah watched the mother's face twist into tears of relief as she jumped up to the place to the left of her daughter and grabbed a live chicken.

The man continued walking until another gap in the line revealed itself and he repeated his tutelage with the big-nosed woman. A few steps later, he indicated a spot in the line and Sarah stepped up. He stood next to her and waited while a young girl handed the woman to her right a newly killed, largely plucked chicken.

Sarah watched the woman cut the chicken down its breast with a sharp knife and then pull the ribs apart before handing it to the man. He reached into the body cavity and pulled out a handful of warm, bloody offal. Sarah saw him quickly toss gizzards, heart and liver into a bucket in front of her, and the remaining viscera onto the floor. The woman directly to Sarah's right waited for the gutted chicken with a small hatchet in her hands. The man handed her the chicken and Sarah watched her detach the bird's feet and head in two whacks.

He stepped back and motioned for Sarah to take his place. The woman to her left handed her a newly cut chicken and the woman to her right tapped her hatchet with impatience.

Sarah stood and gutted chickens for the next five hours. At one point she tried to communicate with the women around her to ask where the facilities were that she might relieve herself. The man quickly appeared, but before she could speak he brandished a short stubbed whip and brought it whistling down across her shoulders. Stunned, Sarah whirled on him without thinking. He backed away from her, then grabbed the young girl in line and, in front of Sarah, beat her back and buttocks with his whip, his eyes on Sarah throughout.

She quickly took her place back in line and didn't look up again until a loud bell clanged and all the workers stepped down from their places in line. She followed the women she had worked next to all afternoon to her bed for the night.

Too exhausted to think of eating and too nauseated to keep it down anyway, Sarah fell on the thin covering on the floor that was her pallet. The women's dormitory was a smaller room off the main work floor, but the smell was no less foul. Sarah lay on the pallet, grateful to be off her feet. Her legs twitched and aching pain clawed up to her thighs.

How in the world would she last another day? Except for the high windows in the main killing floor, she had seen no other way out of the factory except the double front doors. A few women were allowed to go out to fetch the buckets of water they were constantly throwing down on the floor to wash away the blood and the sticky offal, but otherwise no one left or entered the building.

The light had plunged the factory into darkness except for one lantern in the dormitory. Sarah could smell food being cooked but she was too tired to lift her head to see who was doing it or if they were sharing. For the first time since she came to the factory, she heard voices and conversation around her. Soft, murmuring voices and even a chuckle filtered through her subconscious, although Sarah wasn't sure she hadn't fallen asleep and dreamed that.

Was it the middle of the night? Was she awake? Her fingers and feet vibrated with exhaustion and the exertion of being held taut all day. When she closed her eyes, she realized she had been breathing out of her nose for hours and hadn't realized it. The smell no longer seemed that bad.

She was so tired she didn't realize a hand was pressing on her shoulder until she felt it through her blouse and the thin rag that served as a blanket. She jerked around to face the woman who had stood next to her all day chopping off chicken heads and feet. For a moment, Sarah wasn't sure she wasn't dreaming her, too.

“You're thirsty, luv,” the woman said, holding out a plastic cup to Sarah.

Sarah sat up and reached for the water, not caring if it were radioactive or laced with cyanide. She drank it down and groaned with the relief of quenching a thirst she hadn't even registered that she had. “Thank you,” she whispered, the memory of the poor girl's beating coming quickly to mind.

“We can talk a bit in here,” the woman said as she took the cup back. Sarah guessed her age to be close to her own. She had kind eyes, but her hair had been cropped short, as if she had been sick.

“How long have you been here?” Sarah was grateful for the kindness and she tried to smile, praying it didn't look like something manic and unnatural.

“Not long. Just long enough to know the ropes.”

“How did you come to be here? Does your family know?”

“My family is gone.” The woman looked away and then back at Sarah. “It's just me now.”

“Did they come to your village and take you?”

“You sound different. Where are you from?”

“I'm American. My name's Sarah.”

“I'm Desdemona. People call me Dez. Where did they find you?”

“I was living in Ireland. They…they killed my husband to take me.” It didn't feel any more real to say the words, but the pain at hearing them was just as bad.

“I'm sorry about that. We'd heard a rumor that they was going further afield for the recruits. Ireland, huh?”

Sarah shook her head. “Recruits for their poultry processing factory? They've kidnapped me for this?”

“That's not how it works.”

“How what works? And those people by the door…the ones that look like they're about to keel over? Who are they?”

“They were us, six months ago.” Dez's mouth hardened when she spoke. “But it won't be me. It damn sure won't be me, I can tell you.”

“Is there no escape? I thought there were laws in England even after the, you know, the bomb.”

“We have laws,” Dez said with disgust. “But the people in charge are paid to look the other way.”

“Don't you have a village? People to look out for you?” Sarah thought of Mike's community. Everyone from very different walks of life had come together to forge a new kind of clan that watched everyone else's back. If it weren't for her and David's stubbornness, she would probably be safe within their compound right this minute.

“I was a paralegal in Kent. I had a boyfriend, who I haven't seen since The Crisis, may God rest his soul. He was a fool so I'm sure he's dead. I stayed in my apartment for a while until the looting and the gangs drove me out, then I was living in the street. It wasn't like that where you're from?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, we…there's a community run by this head guy and it's all good and we…they look out for each other.”

“Well, that's nice, I'm sure. There wasn't anything like that where I was. When Correy's goons found me, I was ready to be found.”

“Correy?”

Dez laughed. “Yeah, we're in Correyville. Didn't you know? I guess it's like that community you was talking about, only instead of some Irish guy running things it's the devil himself.”

“Dez, there's got to be a way out of here. I've got a family to get back to. If you wanted, you could come with me.”

Dez looked down at the empty plastic cup and then over her shoulder. The rest of the women were either sleeping or talking quietly in small groups. Whoever had cooked had passed the food among the group.

“You don't need to bother. You're not staying.”

“What do you mean?”

“They brought you here so you'd be agreeable to where they
really
want you to be. I've seen ‘em do it fifty times or more already.”

“What do you mean,
where they really want me to be
? Why didn't they just take me there?”

“Coz most women don't take to whoring if they don't have something worse to compare it to. Me, I was pushed into a corner a few times early on after The Crisis—for food, mind you—and it didn't kill me.” Dez shrugged. “But they ain't asking me.”

“How do you know they'll give me a choice?”

“Because they have you pulling guts. It looks like nothing, but there's a skill to it, especially what I do. They got you pulling guts because they want you to go screaming for the door.”

“And the door leads to their prostitution operation?”

“Yeah. Those girls eat good, and they have nice beds. They don't get walloped for nothing nor have to smell shite every minute of the day. You want to be there, Sarah. Trust me.”

“And you think they put me
here
so I would then gratefully give my body to whomever paid me.”

“Well, they're not paying
you
, but yeah. I sure as shit would.” Dez looked around the room. “There's not many would turn down the offer if it was made to them.”

“But some did.”

“Yeah, well, some would rather die, wouldn't they?”

Sarah sighed and fell back onto her pallet. The stench seemed to be reviving as she looked around the darkened room. “I have a child,” she said. “Dying's not an option.”

“Well, then I guess you're going to the whorehouse.”

T
wo days sitting
in the back of what used to be a dry cleaners. Two days of wondering where Sarah was and if that was really her on the ferry.

Two days.

Mike sat at the counter and looked out the window onto the street of Boreen, County Wexford.

Two days. Just long enough to cool her trail down to make it impossible to ever pick up again.
It had been her. He knew it.

A light tap on the door prompted him to his feet and he stood watching the front door—still with its welcoming customer's chime intact—open on the form of a tall woman holding a covered tray. As usual, she was accompanied by a man—never the same one—with a gun.

“Aideen,” Mike said, his eyes never leaving the man and his gun.

“Good morning, Mike,” she said. She was a good-looking woman, Mike had to admit. Big where it counted, delicate everywhere else. “I'm afraid we'll be seeing the back of you today.”

“Oh? Finally going to shoot me, are you?”

Her laugh was a rich, throaty one and nearly prompted a smile from him too. If circumstances had been different, he found himself thinking.

“Liam, you big mug, I told you not to bring that in here. It's not necessary.”

Liam frowned and put his gun back in its holster. “We don't know that for sure,” he said, eyeing Mike suspiciously.

“Now, Mike,” Aideen said, spreading out the tray of food on the counter. “We've had this discussion before. You know that no town can function without rules, and I am sorry that you were caught in them. But tolls are important these days. Especially now. We couldn't run the town without them.”

Mike sat back down and reached for the cup of tea on the tray. “I'll be getting me horse back today? And me rifle?”

“Of course. We're not uncivilized. Edgar doesn't enjoy incarcerating people.”

Yeah, right.

“But we've had the use of your horse for two days and so your toll is paid, and also the fine, mind, for breaking the law in the first place.”

“The law? Which would be entering the town without first asking permission?”

“Ah, now, Mike, don't be like that. I've told you before, the law pertains to anyone on horseback or horse-drawn vehicle and it's a good law and we'll stand by that. What with you coming into town without a punt in your pocket, what else could we do?”

“But I'm free to go now?” Mike stood up.

“Aye, but I thought I might make a suggestion?”

“I'm listening.”

“You're keen to cross to Wales, am I right?”

Mike nodded.

“Well, that's expensive, ya see. And what with you as broke as—”

“What's your suggestion, Aideen?”

“Work on my father's farm for two weeks. He'll pay you enough for a round-trip passage to the UK.”

Mike hesitated. “I'll need a fare for another on the way back.”

Now Aideen hesitated and Mike thought her eyes grew a little brighter. “Oh, I see. A runaway wife?”

“No. Just a friend.”

She extended her hand across the tray. “Two weeks and you'll be on your way again. You have my word.”

He hesitated. In the two days he'd had to cool his heels, he realized he needed to be smarter about what he was doing. Partly the reason he'd been caught unawares by the toll—and Edgar—was that he was too focused on his goal and he missed all the important clues around him.

He shook her hand. “Two weeks.”

An hour later, he had his horse and rifle back and was riding alongside Aideen's pony trap to her father's farm.

He glanced around the scenery in this part of Ireland. While the cliffs and crags still buckled beneath the green sod like the area he was from, there was something more tranquil or tame about this part of his country. His eyes lighted on Aideen as she held the reins on the trap. She couldn't be yet thirty, he thought as he watched her curly brown hair cascade down her back, her face freckled from the sun and lack of makeup.

She'd brought a food tray to him for two days in the back of the dry cleaners and spoke cheerfully to him each time. But she had a story. He could see it in her eyes, eyes that weren't as cheerful and ready as her easy smile.

He stretched his back and wondered how far away from the coast her father's farm was.

If his plan wasn't to turn right around and head back to Donovan's Lot, then he needed to use his head better about how he went about things.

He had to get to the UK because that's where Sarah was.

That meant he had to get on the ferry because that was the only way, short of swimming it, to get to the UK.

The ferry cost money.

He had no money.

He'd take the time to make the money.

He could run around like a goose trying to make everything happen fast and get nowhere. Or he could put his shoulder to the plow, probably literally, for two weeks and ensure he got to England.

Now if only Sarah could hold on that long.